Anima: The Shadow of the Palace

Cantarella

Grand Finale

19

JUL/15

After the moving song and dance, the heroine, Calista (played by the new rising star Melissa Langrey), goes to drink the vial of poison. Just then, a shadowy figure swings across the stage on a rope and whisks her away.

The theater erupts in chaos. Women are screaming and wailing, some of the men begin to draw weapons. Most guests are just scrambling over each other to get out of there.

Darkan chooses to wait silently in his seat during the chaos, observing, staying unnoticed. He is curious to see who this other shadow character may be.

Terry heads backstage. Ausma notices him going that direction, and follows. She sees him pickpocket a couple of nobles as they frantically run the opposite direction.

Once backstage, they spot a couple of actresses huddled in the corner, clutching each other and whispering. Ryo stands in the corner. Terry puts his arm around one of the girls and asks what happened. They explain that it was the Umbra, a mysterious figure that has been appearing within the Palace of Music for as long as anyone can remember. Terry slyly slips a hand down her bodice to snatch a small flask of alcohol. The girl is too distraught to notice. He then notices Ryo and asks him what he saw.

Ryo explained that the figure swept her up into the rafters, stage left. The bottle of poison that had broken had bubbled and burned the floor, like acid. The group agrees that it was a murder attempt and perhaps the Umbra was simply trying to save her.

The group heads up into the rafters, closely followed by Darkan. There are a couple of stage hands already searching the area. The dark figure could not be tracked by any member of the group. Terry asks the stage hands if they know of any secret passages around the theater. They describe some doorways that open up to the sleeping quarters above. Ausma uses her large stick to tap at the ceiling until a doorway was found. One popped open to reveal a large sleeping quarters with 6 individual beds.

The newly formed party all search the shared sleeping quarters, but find nothing of interest They also search the star’s rooms. Melissa’s room was full of costume dresses. Terry finds a gold ring and stuffs one of the dresses that he thinks looks most expensive in his bag (the jewels on this dress are all made of glass, and is not worth much, in reality). Darkan sifts through some documents but finds only play bills and letters to family, nothing that would reveal any clues. In Ryo’s room, Terry pretends to look for secret passages but in reality swipes a small gold trimmed lock box. His curiousity overwhelms him, and he asks Ryo about it. Ryo finds him out and retrieves the box back into his possession.

The group then heads down the hallway and up to the roof. Again, they find nothing of interest – only the glowing lights of the city below and the stars above.

Heading back downstairs, they then explore the stage. The floor is burned where the poison fell. Since most stages have secret openings to areas below, Terry begins to search for a hidden opening. Once he’s found one, Ryo pulls the hatch to cause him to fall to the storage area below. Terry does a flip in the air and lands on his feet, smug that he was able to land in style.

The group begins exploring the large storage space. Toward the back of the area, Ausma spots a strange looking area with a large metal door.